In the two weeks since Meatless Mondays started, there has been a smorgasbord of arguments for and against: It was an executive decision that in no way represents student preferences. But it can really help to reduce the campus’s environmental footprint. Meat is an important part of a healthy diet. No, meat increases your risk of chronic diseases. Supporting small, local livestock farms is a good thing. But animals have rights too. And so on and so forth. Here is an unappealing argument that is rarely offered: perhaps we don’t even have a right to eat meat.

Brett Kavanaugh’s recent appointment to the Supreme Court makes him the fifth justice who generally believes in Constitutional Originalism. Like its chief theoretical rival, Living Constitutionalism, Originalism has many nuances. Justice Kavanaugh’s understanding of it will by no means always result in the same rulings as Justice Thomas’s. All Originalists, however, consider themselves bound by the meaning of the text.

It has been an exciting month in the world of exobiology, the scientific study of possible life on other planets. A few weeks ago, scientists at Harvard University presented findings indicating that as much as 35 percent of all known planets larger than Earth may be water-rich. Following closely in their wake, researchers at the University of Chicago came out with a study last week in The Astrophysical Journal showing that the amount of water needed for life to develop comes in a much broader range than previously thought. The news has stirred up a lot of hype lately, and many are wondering if we have now reached a point at which it is no longer scientifically acceptable to think that humans are alone in the cosmos.